If there’s a main takeaway from Complex and Allbirds’s recent event in New York City, it’s that sustainability is so much more than a buzzword; it’s an integral part of people’s livelihoods. This is true across many fields, from street art and local farms, to the shoes we wear.
Held at the Lower East Side’s Foley Art Gallery, the evening represented a culmination of our four-part video series Sustain This, bringing several of the featured artists together in one room to highlight their work in a chic setting. Among them were WRDSMTH, a street artist known for the inspirational phrases he paints on cityscapes; creative executive and social activist Ugo Mozie; and healthy lifestyle power couple Stic (of Dead Prez) and his wife/holistic nutritionist Afya Ibomu. Each demonstrated how sustainability constitutes a key part of their craft through interactive activations. The night’s elevated menu was specially curated by Kristen Kish, Top Chef season 10 winner and owner of Austin, Texas culinary hotspot Arlo Grey.
Guests were provided with the unique opportunity to commune over food and drink while experiencing the personal passions of Allbirds’s creatives firsthand. At WRDSMTH’s installation, attendees witnessed a recreation of his personal workspace and were able to produce their own art on a blank canvas using his stencils. “I have a method of cutting stencils where I can reuse them again and again,” he explains. “So it's not just cutting and throwing paper away. It's actually a way of making them that's durable and portable.
At WRDSMTH’s installation, attendees witnessed a recreation of his personal workspace and were able to produce their own art on a blank canvas using his stencils. “I have a method of cutting stencils where I can reuse them again and again,” he explains. “So it's not just cutting and throwing paper away. It's actually a way of making them that's durable and portable.
For WRDSMTH, watching guests enjoy themselves as they engaged with his art was a true pay-it-forward moment. “I always talk about the ripple effect that happens with my work,” he says. “If people walk away with a smile, they might go up to somebody and their smile makes them smile. It's just this ripple effect.”
That positive energy reverberated throughout the gallery, as guests mingled and danced to DJ Orange Calderón’s tracks, and enjoyed cocktails like basil gimlets and mint juleps in reusable aluminum cups. The menu, presented by Kish’s executive sous-chef Alex Munoz, featured fresh, locally sourced ingredients that were minimally prepared to allow the flavor profiles of each dish to stand out.
“The deviled ham dip is made out of Northern Texas heritage pigs that are completely grazing on the land,” Munoz says. “The butter is all pasture-raised cows. We get the butter in Texas locally, literally just 20 miles from the restaurant. Not a lot is done to these ingredients. It’s mostly just letting them shine for what they are.”
The venue was replete with lush greenery that brought the outdoors inside. Custom-built honeycomb displays showed off Allbirds’s first high-top sneaker, the Tree Topper, which is made with sustainably sourced eucalyptus tree fiber and renewable Brazilian sugarcane. The backdrop was a perfect complement to Stic and Afya’s urban greenhouse installation, where guests were able to take home gardening sets—containing organic herbs and vegetables for growing indoors—ideal for NYC’s compact apartment living.
“We have a big garden, so [the installation] kind of came out of that,” Afya says.
For Stic and Afya, partnering with Allbirds was a natural fit with their lifestyle. “It’s so important to have brands that we can actually purchase and promote that also support the lives we want to live,” she adds. Ugo also took a personal approach to concepting his activation, which reflected his Nigerian roots.
The space boasted a bright yellow jacket made out of upcycled and recycled sugar bags from a community in Uganda. Next to the jacket sat a pod constructed from recycled plastic water bottles; a small-scale version of the structures Ugo builds with the Shadowman Community.
Guests wrote personalized messages on recycled newspapers and stuffed them into the bottles to be shipped to Africa; specifically, to one of the Ugandan villages where Ugo and his team work to construct classrooms and homes out of plastic bottles that otherwise contribute to excess trash.
“I want people to take away that there's so many ways to reuse our environment to make beautiful things,” Ugo says. “We don't have to use toxic things that kill the environment... The plastics, the metals, all that is already here.”
Allbirds is undeniably at the forefront of sustainable fashion, and thanks to their NYC event and Sustain This series, the brand united creatives from many walks of life for something that doesn’t always happen: real-life conversation and applicable action speaking to what a green lifestyle can actually look like. And if the community that assembled last Wednesday night is any indication, it looks pretty good.